Arcane rotation?

[Trel]

I'm leveling a mage, at lvl 30ish right now.

Someone told me in a random that I should be doing
Arcane Barrage, Arcane Blast, and then repeat until Missiles procs, then use missiles and continue.

They also said other than utility spells (timewarp, spell steal, counter spell, etc) this would still be the case at 85.


Is this accurate? If not, what would it be at 85, and is there anything I can do at my level now to prepare?

[Rzzzor]

Unlike WotLK, there's no fixed rotation for Arcane.
At 85 level, you're spamming Arcane Blast when Evocation is off cd or soon will be and hover in between 85-95% mana when Evocation is on CD, using Arcane Missile to break AB streak or ABr if missiles are unavailable. Other than that, you need a castsequence macro with ABr, Fire Blast and Ice Lance for movement. Cooldown usage varies.

Generally, on a Patchwerk encounter, your initial "rotation" will be like:

1. Mage Ward if you'll be taking damage within 30 seconds.
2. Pre-potion > Flame Orb a second before the pull.
3. Arcane Blast until ~85% mana (with or without Power Torrent)
4. Arcane Power + Mana Gem + whatever trinket you have if you have any.
5. Mirror Images after Power Torrent proc. If Power Torrent doesn't proc, cast Mirror Images anyway before Arcane Power expires.
6. Arcane Blast.
7. Arcane Blast.
8. Arcane Blast.
9. Arcane Blast.
10. Arcane Blast until 30% mana.
11. Evocation.
12. Presence of Mind > Arcane Blast (Personal choice. Might aswell cast it after Arcane Power expired if some other cooldown/proc is active).
13. 85-95% mana hovering.

[hightides24]

Unlike WotLK, there's no fixed rotation for Arcane.
At 85 level, you're spamming Arcane Blast when Evocation is off cd or soon will be and hover in between 85-95% mana when Evocation is on CD, using Arcane Missile to break AB streak or ABr if missiles are unavailable. Other than that, you need a castsequence macro with ABr, Fire Blast and Ice Lance for movement. Cooldown usage varies.

Yep. At 85, there are pretty much 2 phases when playing arcane: burn phase and a mana-conservation phase. During the burn phase (while evocation is available) you spam arcane blast until about 30% mana. Then evocate. After that, you basically try to stay around 85-95% mana, like Rzzzor said, until evocation is available again. You want to have a lot of mana during the mana-conservation phase because of arcane's mastery (which allows you to do more damage with more mana).

Until you get your mastery, however, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Just stick with your current rotation.

[Deleted]

wtf happened to the spam 2 buttons era?

[Deleted]

You might want to change thread name a little if you ask about lower level arcane, otherwise this one might get locked due to existencce of arcane sticky.

Note few things about arcane at lower levels:
-No mastery, no point in sitting near 100% mana all the time
-Lower haste levels, missiles take ages to finish channeling (or do they? Didn't bother to compare tbh)
-Mobs usually die faster, favouring instant barrage over channeled missiles
-Less intellect from gear causes barrage to take more % of your total mana than in end game with loads of additional intellect from gear.

I'd say -depending how long mobs would live and how many of them there is, to use Arcane Explosion or few Ablast + Barrages, and missiles on these that live longer. Pay attention only to never get oom, not to being near 100% mana. Don't think anything at these levels have any spell to be stolen, but interrupting might be a good choice if you took that talent boosting your damage after interrupt.

Personally I find myself spamming Arcane Explosion most of the time - not much space to learn anything abuot end-game playstyle tbh.

It really would change only after you get lvl 80 and can learn mastery. Not only playstyle changes, but even trash mobs start bo live longerand you are getting to execute "proper rotation" more often. For this matter you already got few replies above and/or mentioned sticky.

[Spammingarcaneblastishard]

Read my name, thats what you gotta do.

[Rzzzor]

Read my name, thats what you gotta do.

90% of mages follow your advise - you can see them doing 15k DPS in BH.

[Hornzul]

in lower levels, with full heirloom gear on, and some crits, you can 2-3 shot mobs with AB then use instant missles (if they're up) on anything still alive

[Gobsplosion]

Unlike WotLK, there's no fixed rotation for Arcane.
At 85 level, you're spamming Arcane Blast when Evocation is off cd or soon will be and hover in between 85-95% mana when Evocation is on CD, using Arcane Missile to break AB streak or ABr if missiles are unavailable. Other than that, you need a castsequence macro with ABr, Fire Blast and Ice Lance for movement. Cooldown usage varies.

Generally, on a Patchwerk encounter, your initial "rotation" will be like:

1. Mage Ward if you'll be taking damage within 30 seconds.
2. Pre-potion > Flame Orb a second before the pull.
3. Arcane Blast until ~85% mana (with or without Power Torrent)
4. Arcane Power + Mana Gem + whatever trinket you have if you have any.
5. Mirror Images after Power Torrent proc. If Power Torrent doesn't proc, cast Mirror Images anyway before Arcane Power expires.
6. Arcane Blast.
7. Arcane Blast.
8. Arcane Blast.
9. Arcane Blast.
10. Arcane Blast until 30% mana.
11. Evocation.
12. Presence of Mind > Arcane Blast (Personal choice. Might aswell cast it after Arcane Power expired if some other cooldown/proc is active).
13. 85-95% mana hovering.

This is close to correct, the only changes I would recommend making is cast 3 AB, then PoM AB right before blowing your cooldowns due to the extra crit chance on the next 2 AB cast to try and benefit your burn phase as much as possible.

Also during conserve phase 85-95% mana is fine but I prefer to cast as many AB as you can and then AM while trying to stay as close to 100% as possible, if you are hovering around 85% you are losing a small % of the mastery bonus which will ultimately be a dps loss, albeit a small one.